


Faceless and Invisible

by thelittlestbird



Series: Return and Remember [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Future Fic, Gen, Post - The Winds of Winter, Spoilers for Book 5 - A Dance with Dragons, Spoilers for Book 6 - The Winds of Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2004912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlestbird/pseuds/thelittlestbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “Future fic where Arya goes to Dany in disguise, but Tyrion recognizes her.”</p><p>Summary: When Daenerys and her dragons retake Dragonstone Castle, Arya Stark decides that she needs to see for herself what's going on, and maybe even that she wants to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faceless and Invisible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VanillaMostly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/gifts).



There were dragons in Dragonstone.

Tyrion still felt a little thrill of excitement every time he realized that. He didn’t go outside the castle very often, but whenever he did, he looked up, and there was always a dragon there.

They’d helped turn the tide in the battle for Dragonstone – the very sight of dragons soaring above Westeros made half of Stannis’s army throw down their weapons in surrender. 

Nobody had dared move against Daenerys and her people since. The dragons perched on top of the massive Stone Drum keep; mirrored the great sculpted beast of Windwyrm Tower; wheeled and roared high above the sea.

But they only held one island, and they had seven kingdoms to win.

Maybe when they had won them, Tyrion could go outside more often. Right now, he wasn’t going to risk it. Cersei and Tommen had fled King’s Landing in disgrace and defeat, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t people who still wanted him dead. In addition to the murders of his nephew (false), and father (true), he was now believed to have killed his uncle Kevan (also false). Undoubtedly someone would be willing, he thought, to pay for one head, minus one nose. Tyrion hadn’t survived this long by betting that people would forget about him.

Tyrion’s bets were leaning in a different direction now. And they were still paying off, he thought, as he touched the white dragon cyvasse piece he always carried with him. He’d won the Second Sons, and he’d won a few extra months of life that had stretched into more than a year. He just needed to stay out of sight of everyone except the few people on Dragonstone he trusted. Daenerys. Penny. Jorah. Ser Barristan Selmy. Brown Ben Plumm.

A short list, but each name on it was all the more precious for having so few others to keep it company.

That’s why it was fortunate that Dragonstone had secret passages. Just like the Red Keep, with its network of tunnels and stairs for servants to scurry and spies to skulk.

The stairs were steep, and they made Tyrion’s legs ache when he climbed them, but they always got him where he wanted to go.

* * *

The queen was in Dragonstone, everyone said. Not Cersei, not Margaery, not any of the wives of any of the men who called themselves king. A true dragon; a true Targaryen.

Also, three dragons.

Arya could see them circling above the castle when she looked across the water from the Blue Claw tavern in Sharp Point. From this far away the flying creatures looked small enough to be birds, but she knew better.

She hunched her shoulders down and pushed a strand of fine blonde hair behind her ear, becoming Rysa Waters again as she stepped through the tavern door. Rysa was embarrassed about her height and tried to hide it; Rysa tried hard to be neat. If your clothes and hair weren’t tidy, nobody would think that you could keep their kitchen or castle tidy either, and Rysa needed work.

What Arya needed was to find out more about the Queen Across the Water, and about those dragons. She knew that she shouldn’t be trying to get anything for Arya. She was supposed to be nobody. She shouldn’t care anything about what Arya wanted or needed. But she did anyway. For months she had been finding the people Arya hated, crossing more names off her list of nightly prayers. Now she was looking for something else.

Yesterday she’d been laughing red-haired Trina, winning everyone’s confidence and secrets with her good nature and open-mouthed wonder about the dragons. It was always easier when you didn’t have to pretend too hard, and Arya didn’t have to feign her fascination with the dragons. It worked in her favor: she’d discovered that one of the barmaids had a sister who worked in the kitchens at Dragonstone, and that she still mourned the young man she’d lost in the Battle of the Blackwater. So today, mopy blonde Rysa would be looking for a job, because she’d been widowed and driven off her farm by freeriders.

Changing faces was as easy as changing clothes now. Arya knew that she shouldn’t do it casually; she’d been taught how to respect the power that let her do it. But she figured that this was an important enough cause to be worth using a few faces. This was about a queen. This was about _dragons._

Rysa drooped into the Blue Claw, hardly looking at anyone as she sidled up to the bar. 

With the glimpses that she caught out of the corners of her eye, and the snatches of conversation that she heard along the way, Arya measured the mood of the crowd: still good, still optimistic. There were those in Sharp Point who had always hoped for the Targaryens’ return, and now those hopes were paying off. Plus, with people living in Dragonstone for the first time in two years, farmers and other smallfolk could sell their wares again.

“Something to eat, miss?” Brenna, the sympathetic widowed barmaid, spoke up near Rysa’s corner of the bar. “Or drink? Or both?”

Rysa hesitated, unsure whether she would have enough coin to pay for both food and drink. One hand fingered the slight weight of her purse, measuring it. “Just bread and cheese,” she decided in sorrowful embarrassment, but was still polite enough to add, “Please.”

Brenna studied the sad blonde girl for a moment, then nodded. “Right.” She came back in a few moments with – just as Arya had expected – a mug of ale in addition to the plate of food, and an apple alongside the bread and cheese. “There you go, love,” Brenna said with a warm sympathetic smile.

Rysa looked up, startled out of her melancholy by the barmaid’s generosity. “Oh, miss, you’re too kind!”

“You look like you could use a drink,” Brenna replied, patting Rysa’s thin shoulder. 

Arya stole a look up at Brenna – just as she’d hoped, the barmaid’s eyes were full of curious sympathy. She estimated that Brenna was less than a minute from saying ‘tell me all about it, dear.’

Rysa tore off a piece of bread and gobbled it hungrily down. Food first. Then, talking. “What I need more is work,” Rysa confided.

“Oh, dear,” Brenna sighed. “Tell me all about it.”

Two hours later, Rysa was on a boat to Dragonstone with a note recommending her for a job as a kitchenmaid.

* * *

“The Celtigars are still wavering,” Ser Barristan reported at the meeting of the Queen’s Small Council.

Daenerys frowned. “Do they really have that much faith in that boy pretender in the capital?”

Ser Barristan spread his hands. “Lord Mathin is little more than a boy himself, Your Grace, still trying to find his way after his grandfather’s death.” 

Tyrion smiled sourly at that. Lord Ardrian Celtigar had been one of the people who testified against him at his trial. Ever since he’d been back in Westeros, memories of that trial had been coming back to him more and more. And what followed it. When he was awake, at least he could drink enough that he forgot about them sometimes. That’s what he did now, tipping his cup back to take a long sip. He didn’t have that luxury when those memories came to him in his dreams. 

Ser Barristan didn’t notice Tyrion’s expression; he just kept speaking. “I am trying to win him over, and I think I will succeed.”

“I told you two weeks ago what you needed to do about little Lord Celtigar,” Tyrion broke in, distracting himself from his own thoughts at the same time that he distracted the rest of the council. “Get him away from his sister’s husband.” Lady Eliana Celtigar was married to Ser Willem Ferren, a vile and conceited man whom Tyrion remembered from the Westerlands, knighted for some act of gallant bloodthirstiness during the War of Five Kings. Willem’s love of watching bears tear prisoners (preferably innocent ones) to shreds was exceeded only by his love of dithering. “Lord Mathin will be free to make a decision, Lady Eliana will be free of that sadistic toad, and we’ll be free to add another several hundred men to our army.”

Ser Barristan said, as he had every time Tyrion brought it up, “It isn’t that simple.” 

While Barristan and Daenerys talked about the old Crownlands lords, Tyrion sipped wine and stared at the wall. Black stone spikes were stuck in sconces as if they were candles.

Wait, no, they _were_ candles. One of them was burning. Tyrion would have sworn that it hadn’t been when the meeting started. He also would have sworn that nobody had touched it.

He smiled to himself.  
* * *

Arya couldn’t see anything through the tiny crack in the wall, but she could hear the Small Council talking. 

She’d found the tunnels one night when she couldn’t sleep, kept awake by dreams of blood and screams. Never on the nights when she dreamed of wolves, or of the calm weirwood tree. Those nights, she slept soundly. 

But on the nights she couldn’t sleep, she wandered.

It stood to reason that a castle like Dragonstone would have secret passages. Finding them was easy if you knew what to look for. Straight-line cracks in the wall near a tapestry; rooms whose insides and outsides didn’t match; floors that echoed when they shouldn’t. It only took her an hour or so to find them that first night.

The darkness inside the secret passages felt better than the darkness outside. Inside, it was narrow, closed-in, quiet. Safe.

She’d never seen anyone else in the tunnels, so it was possible that nobody else knew about them, but just in case, she never went the same way twice. Doubling back, taking different routes, placing her feet lightly and carefully so that nobody would hear her steps – she followed all the rules that she’d been taught.

Now every morning after breakfast she crept up here so that she could listen to the Queen and her council. She couldn’t see faces from where she stood in the passage, so she kept track of voices. The Queen was easy to pick out, of course: she was the only woman who spoke. There was Ser Barristan, whose voice sounded older than the rest. She remembered an elderly Ser Barristan on the Kingsguard, and thought he must be the same one. The others hardly ever got referred to by name – sometimes they called each other ‘ser’ or ‘my lord,’ but that was it. There was a Northern man, and the sound of that familiar accent tugged at Arya’s heart when it caught her unawares. There was a younger man with a very deep voice – Arya always thought that he had good ideas, but Ser Barristan never agreed with him, and he usually got outvoted.

Sometimes the Queen agreed with the deep-voiced man, though. She was good at listening to advice and picking out good ideas – that was one of the reasons that Arya was starting to think of her more and more as “the Queen.” Not “the Queen Across the Water,” not “the Targaryen” or any of the other names that she’d attached to Daenerys in her mind when she was in Sharp Point. Just “the Queen.” The only one who was real; the only one who mattered.

“Lord Mathin does listen to his good-brother far too much,” said the Queen. It sounded like this was going to be one of the days that she agreed with the deep-voiced man. “And Ser Willem is…not a good influence on anyone.” The Queen was trying to be tactful, but Arya could still hear the distaste in her voice. “He has already persuaded Lord Mathin to increase taxation, and is attempting to collect those taxes through force.”

Arya recognized the name of that good-brother, too. Willem Ferren had been one of Ser Amory Lorch’s men at Harrenhal. He hadn't been a Ser then, and he hadn’t had enough of a hand in the torturing to get on her list. But even though he never wielded the knife himself, when there was torturing to be done, he always made sure that he was there to watch, and he always laughed. The louder other people cried, the louder he laughed. Anger twisted in Arya at the memory, and she tried to fight it back. _I’m nobody. I’m nobody. Calm as still water…_

“I don’t see how he can be removed,” said the Northern man. “Lord Mathin respects Ser Willem’s opinion.”

The deep-voiced man snorted. “The gods only know why.” 

The Northern man continued as if the deep-voiced man hadn’t spoken. “And they are the last few members of a small family.”

“Well, we will see what happens when they arrive,” said the Queen. “They will be here in three days’ time. We will see what we can do then.”

Three days. Someone whose influence needed to be removed. Someone who laughed when others cried, who followed Amory Lorch, who now had a young wife. The Queen wanted him gone.

Arya knew what she had to do.

As the council meeting ended, Arya smiled into the darkness and turned to creep back down the passage.

* * *

As the council meeting ended, Tyrion headed back to his chambers, descending through black stone tunnels that had been shaped by the highest of Valyrian magic. It didn’t make the bloody steps any easier to manage. You’d think that somewhere in all those centuries of high Valyrian magic they’d have found a better way to get up and down besides _stairs._ He took a sip from his cup – nearly empty now – and kept going, turning left into a side passage – 

\- and ran straight into a girl, splattering wine all over her white apron.

“Oh!” she gasped.

Who was she? A servant? He didn’t think that any of the actual servants used these corridors. He didn’t think that anyone besides him used these corridors. She was tall, skinny, with sad blue eyes and blonde hair that kept slipping out of its tidy knot.

He stared. 

She stared.

Then, as if remembering that she was frightened rather than just startled, the maid stumbled backwards, eyes going wide. “I’m sorry, m’lord!” she gasped.

Tyrion groaned inwardly. She might be the kind of maid who called everyone m’lord or m’lady, but more likely, she was calling him m’lord because she knew who he was. He’d seen the recognition dawning in those sad blue eyes.

* * *  
It was the Imp.

It had been years since Arya saw him, not since she was a child in King’s Landing. He looked different now, too, with a horrible scar that took the place of most of his nose. But behind the scar, and behind the haunted look in his mismatched eyes, it was the same face. The same person. 

The Imp. The Bloody Hand.

“Contrary to universal belief,” he said dryly, “I do not bite.”

His was the deep voice she had heard in the council meeting.

The person she’d been agreeing with was the _Imp_?

She had to say something. She had to say something that Rysa would say. “I meant no disrespect, m’lord,” she mumbled, bobbing an awkward curtsey.

To her surprise, he replied, “I know you didn’t. You were so startled that you didn’t have time to mean anything. And in return, I meant no disrespect to your apron. I might try to claim that I wanted to share the bounty of a good Dornish red with it, but I fear it would not appreciate the attempt.” 

She stared. He was…funny. He’d been funny in the council meetings, too, sometimes, she thought. She didn’t want him to be funny. She didn’t want to laugh at his jokes. That was the kind of thing that friends did. 

“I must admit,” he continued, “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone here, either. Who are you?”

 _I’m nobody,_ she told herself. I’m nobody. But she wasn’t nobody. She hadn’t been nobody for a long time. Maybe she’d never been nobody.

“I’m Rysa, m’lord,” she stammered, with another curtsey. “Rysa Waters. I work in the kitchen. I – I’d just been - ”

While Rysa’s words faltered, Arya’s mind raced. The Imp. The Bloody Hand. It was _him._

Somehow, his name had never been on her list. If what they said was true, and he’d killed Joffrey, then he’d hated Joffrey as much as she did, and that meant that they were at least partly on the same side. But the gods only knew what he’d done to Sansa when they were married. The words that Mercedene had spoken every night of the mummers’ play at The Gate flew through her head.

The words that she’d never believed, but had only said because they got her closer to her goal. What words could she say now, to get her closer to this new goal?

“I found a shortcut, m’lord.” Rysa had gotten over her shock: she could speak more smoothly now. “A few days ago. It lets me get my work done quicker because it’s easier to get ‘round the castle. I – I hope it’s not forbidden, m’lord!” Rysa’s voice started shaking with fear at this new thought. “I never meant to – “

The Imp cut her off with an exasperated wave of his hand. “No, no. It’s not forbidden.”

* * *

It wasn’t forbidden, really, and even if it were, would Tyrion have any power to enforce it? He sat on the Queen’s Council; he was called “my lord” by everyone, but what power did he really have? Only the power that he could wield invisibly, now that he was back in Westeros.

Showing his face was a different kind of power – the power to frighten and confuse, as he was seeing right now. That was the power of uncertainty, of rumor and nightmare and tavern tales and mummers’ plays. Real power all the same – he could see it in Rysa’s eyes. 

Still, not as much fear as he might expect. Despite Rysa’s meekly bent shoulders, she was brave enough to keep speaking to him, and he could sense keen intelligence behind her wide eyes. The fear was genuine; he could tell that much – but there was some other kind of calculation going on, too.

“It’s not forbidden,” Tyrion repeated, and Rysa visibly relaxed. “Go about your business. If it’s in service to Her Grace, then it’s all right.”

“Oh, thank you, m’lord!” Rysa gasped. She was already starting to back away down the corridor, and Tyrion waved her on. “Thank you!” she said again – and then added, as she was about to disappear around the corner, “Yes, I do want to serve Her Grace well.”

Funny, Tyrion thought. That last bit sounded more sincere than the rest of the kitchen maid’s words put together.

* * *

Three days later, the Celtigars arrived.

Tyrion couldn’t see much from the arrowslit that he was peeking through – he wasn’t exactly in the official welcoming party that greeted the noble guests at the gates. But he could see Ser Willem’s cloak: garish in the green and red and yellow of his own House, even worse now that it was quartered with the overly busy Celtigar red crabs. The sight brought a sharp grin to Tyrion’s face: old Lord Ardrian Celtigar may have been a lying toady, but at least he’d been a well-dressed lying toady, and he was probably turning in his grave at the thought of his granddaughter married to such a gaudy popinjay.

Then Tyrion sobered. Bad clothes were funny, but a bad person wasn’t, and Lady Eliana didn’t deserve to be married to Ser Willem.

He could hear Ser Willem from far away, too: the knight’s speech trampled over his young good-brother like a charging horse even though Lord Mathin outranked him, and by rights should have been the one speaking. “You do us great honor,” Willem brayed, his voice as harsh and obsequious as his grin as he bowed to Daenerys. 

Servants and stablehands scurried about as the nobles spoke, unloading and arranging and organizing. Amid the bustle, Tyrion thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar tall blonde girl – but why would Rysa be out there? Shouldn’t she be in the kitchen? Nobody else seemed to have noticed, though. Certainly, Willem hadn’t noticed; he wasn’t looking at anyone except the Queen, not even his wife or her brother. They weren’t lofty enough to register in his awareness.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Lord Mathin managed to get in. “We are – “

But Willem broke in again, “We are _very_ interested in forging closer bonds. The Celtigars have always served the Targaryens.” Except for all the times that they hadn’t, Tyrion thought. Willem stepped closer to Daenerys, and even from this far away, Tyrion could see Barristan’s hand twitch closer to his sword.

 

* * *

Rysa shouldn’t have been there, but who was looking at servants? Not Ser Willem. His hand was on his wife’s elbow – too tight – and his eyes were on the Queen – too direct – and his mind was on what he could gain from everyone around him. Ser Willem didn’t notice as Rysa, one smallfolk face among many, mingled with Lady Eliana’s maids.

Lady Eliana wasn’t looking at her, either. Lady Eliana was looking at the ground with eyes that were shadowed by sleeplessness and fear

“Separate rooms for m’lady?” Rysa asked the lady’s maid, shooting a pointed glance over at Ser Willem. 

The lady’s maid blinked, surprised at being addressed, and then gave a smile with so much relief in it that it hurt to see. “If you can,” she whispered. The maid darted a look over at the nobles, making sure they were out of earshot before she dropped her voice even lower. “It – it would be much better if _he_ couldn’t get in.”

Arya nodded. Tonight at dinner, she decided, Ser Willem would have a few herbs in his wine, just enough to make certain that he went right to sleep afterwards and not wake until morning. He _would_ wake in the morning – it would be too conspicuous if he didn’t. She wasn’t going to take anything from _that_ pouch of herbs. But he would go to his own room and stay there, and Lady Eliana would get a full night’s sleep.

Ser Willem finally let go of Lady Eliana, and Arya slipped in when he was looking at the Queen instead. “M’lady,” she whispered. “Look at the dragons.”

Lady Eliana dared to look up, and at the sight of dragons, for just a moment, her sad eyes lit with hope.

 

* * *

Divide and conquer: as good a strategy as any. 

Daenerys would take Lady Eliana, Barristan would take young Lord Mathin, and Jorah would take Ser Willem – take him far away, so that he wouldn’t be there to influence his wife or good-brother. Tyrion would remain hidden, as always, and float among the meetings to see if he heard anything interesting that could be used.

It would have been a decent strategy, that is, if Ser Willem had been there.

“He’s gone.” Jorah’s voice sounded confused from where Tyrion stood in the passage. And then, “There’s nobody here at all.”

That meant that Tyrion could speak freely. “What do you mean?” He poked his head out through the hidden door to see for himself.

Jorah was the only person there. He held his hands out in a helpless shrug.

 

* * *

She’d done this half a dozen times in the last year: preparing to meet someone that she was going to kill. But this time was different. She wasn’t just killing Ser Willem for herself; she was killing him because it would help the Queen.

“Pardon, m’lord.” Rysa whispered, when she found Ser Willem in the courtyard. Her shoulders hunched anxiously, and her sad blue eyes were too shy and deferential to look up at him. “You’re wanted upstairs.”

She didn’t have to worry about looking meek after all: Ser Willem barely even glanced in her direction. “Hm?” he asked absently, staring up at the great tower known as the Stone Drum. The black dragon was perched on top of it, its wings fading into the black stone of Dragonstone like a black bird flying against the night sky.

She supposed that she couldn’t blame him. Her first day here, she’d stared up at the dragons all day, too. But seeing his fascination gave her an even better idea. “Her Grace wants to show them to you, m’lord. The – the dragons.” She gave her voice a little tremor – Rysa was still afraid of them, she thought. Right on cue, Ser Willem started to puff up. “As a sign of her favor,” Rysa added. Ser Willem was so in love with what he was hearing that he didn’t even stop to wonder why a kitchen maid was the one saying it to him, not a page or a squire as it should have been. “I can take you to them, m’lord.”

“Yes, do,” Ser Willem said, as imperious as if he were the one who gave the order in the first place. “Show me.” He gave an unpleasant little laugh. “Have you seen the claws on them? I wonder what would happen…” He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts of shredding and slashing.

It wouldn’t occur to Rysa to always keep him in her sight, but Arya made sure that Ser Willem never had a clear shot at her back.

She led him into the great tower through a corridor that she was sure nobody would be using, up the twisting stairs of the Stone Drum, and out a side door onto the bridge that connected this tower with the next. Salty wind whipped at Rysa’s hair, and at Ser Willem’s bright-colored cloak. “Her Grace will be here shortly, m’lord,” Rysa said, bobbing a quick curtsey. 

Ser Willem didn’t answer – he was too busy staring at the dragon. 

It was the easiest thing in the world to push him over the edge.

_Valar morghulis._

* * *  
In the empty room, Tyrion and Jorah shrugged. “I’ll go tell Her Grace,” Tyrion offered. “I’m sure she’s having better luck with her meeting. The good thing about being queen is, you can get everyone to come to you.”

Good for you, bad for everyone else, Tyrion added inwardly as he set out to climb the long twisting stairs that led to the chamber of the Painted Table at the top of the tower.

* * *

Heart pounding, Arya dashed back into the corridor, and then through the hidden door behind a tapestry that led to the secret passages.

Time for another face. Rysa was done – someone else would come out of the passage into the kitchen and leave Dragonstone behind, and Arya would find some other way to help the Queen. 

She forced herself to slow her breathing, and lifted her hand in the familiar gesture. 

Nothing happened.

And then something did.

She could feel herself changing, but it was different this time. As her face shifted, she felt a ripple of something else, something blocking the change of her shape. Instead, she felt herself growing smaller; felt her hair shortening and her face lengthening. Her chin sharpened and cheekbones flattened and muscles hardened, all in the space of a moment. 

She knew at once whose face she was wearing right now: the face of Arya Stark. 

What had happened? How could this be? Was it something about being close to dragons? In Braavos, they’d said that magic was acting strange everywhere now that dragons were flying again. But they’d said that magic was getting more powerful, not less. Why should the power of the House of Black and White not work at all? Was there something about being near dragons – or in Dragonstone – that blocked it?

But she didn’t have time to think anymore – she could hear the muted thump of footsteps on the stone floor. “Stupid!” she spat, furious at herself. How could she not have left herself another exit? How could she have been so stupid?

She turned to run – 

\- and came face-to-face with the Imp.

 

* * *

Tyrion wasn’t sure what he was seeing. The kitchen maid’s clothes were too big for her; her sleeves flopped over her hands.

Her hair was short and brown, her eyes keen and dark, her face long and thin. Familiar – and yet, not a face he’d seen anywhere in the castle. Certainly not the face of the blonde kitchen maid Rysa he’d run into three days before – and yet she was wearing the blonde maid’s apron with the same stain on it where Tyrion’s wine had splattered three days before. It was the same person. And yet it wasn’t.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” the brown-haired girl was saying. 

That word.

That word tugged at Tyrion’s memory. The intonation and the face, and…

“Seven hells.” Laughter rose up in Tyrion and burst out in peal after hysterical peal. It felt wonderful. He wasn’t sure when he’d last laughed like this. “You’re _Arya Stark._ You were Rysa the kitchen maid, and you’re Arya Stark. How did you do it?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” she snapped back, hissing like a cornered tree cat.

“You don’t have to,” Tyrion conceded. “But I’d very much like it if you did.”

“I don’t care what you like!” she spat. 

* * *

She flattened her back against the wall and counted with her eyes. How many paces between him and her; how many paces to the stairs; how hard she would have to throw her knife if she wanted to hit him in the shoulder versus how hard she would have to throw it if she wanted to hit him in the stomach; how likely it was that she’d be able to push him out of the way. His legs were shorter than those of the people she was used to fighting – he’d probably be harder to knock off-balance. Definitely harder to sweep his knees…

Did she have to kill him, too? What had he seen? “What are you going to do?” she asked, fury starting to subside into wariness.

He answered with an honesty that startled her. “That depends what you’re here to do. You know about these passages, so I have to assume that you’ve been listening at doors. So you know our secrets. The question is, who would you be carrying those secrets to? There’s no King in the North; there’s nothing for you at the Wall.” She wouldn’t flinch. She _wouldn’t._ Calm as still water. Quiet as shadow. “So whom _do_ you serve?” he continued. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t want to kill him.

She gave an answer that she knew would make him not want to kill her. It could sound even more convincing because it was the truth: “I don’t serve anyone except myself. I’m here because I wanted to see what Queen Daenerys was like. And now that I have, I want to help her.”

* * *

It sounded sincere. She could have said anything, but she had said that, and she sounded like she meant it.

“Why?” Tyrion asked simply.

She paused, and the pause made Tyrion even more certain than he had been before that she was Arya Stark. He’d just asked her what liege she served and why: no Stark would give that question anything less than full, serious consideration, no matter how young. And, gods, she was young. Still a child, mostly, even though she had a look in her eyes that said that she’d seen and done things that no child should.

Her answers weren’t those of a child, either. “Because everyone here always has enough to eat,” she began, “and we get more sleep than we did at Harrenhal.” Harrenhal? Tyrion blinked. When had she been there? Had it been when the Lannisters held it? He hoped so. Half the realm looking for Arya Stark, and she’d been under their noses the whole time? That was the funniest thing he’d heard in weeks. Months, maybe.

This time, though, he didn’t laugh. What she was talking about now didn’t deserve laughter anywhere near it. She was right to take it seriously.

“I’ve heard the Queen in her Small Council meetings,” Arya continued, her eyes daring him to ask how she had heard. “She cares about the people. She wants to do the right thing, and when she makes a mistake, she admits it and tries to do better. She knows good advice when she hears it, and she follows it, but she’s got good ideas of her own, too.”

They were good reasons for serving a king or queen. As good as any. As good as his. Much better than most.

“Do you think she can win the war?”

Arya grinned, baring fierce teeth. “She’s got dragons.”

* * *

By the second time he spoke, she was sure that the Imp wasn’t going to kill her, or call for Ser Barristan to kill her. If he had wanted to, he already would have. He was too interested in figuring her out: why she was here, what she was doing. If he killed her, she couldn’t answer his questions, and he wanted her to answer his questions much more than he wanted anything else. 

“I’m going to stay here,” she decided. How would she explain Rysa’s sudden absence and Arya’s sudden presence? She didn’t know, but she’d think of something. She’d done it before. She’d been the ghost in Harrenhal; she could be the ghost in Dragonstone, too. “And I’m going to help the Queen. But don’t tell Her Grace who I really am. Not yet.” She’d tell her in her own time – until then, she’d think of a new name, even if she couldn’t have a new face to go with it. She couldn’t be Arya Stark all the time again. Not yet.

To her surprise, the Imp nodded and agreed – to her greater surprise, he didn’t ask how she was going to help the Queen. “All right. But if you’re going to use these passages, I’ll most likely be seeing you again. I’m here quite often.” It wasn’t a threat or a warning or a bargain – he was just letting her know. She nodded in return, and he gave her a crooked smile as he explained, “I’m not seen in public very much either, you see.”

Arya thought about that for a moment. She didn’t think she minded. He was the first person in years who had known that she was Arya Stark and didn’t want her to stop being Arya Stark. Plus, they both hated Joffrey, and both served Queen Daenerys, and that meant that they were on the same side. 

That meant that Arya had a side to be on. Maybe she could help keep track of someone else’s list of names instead of just her own.

“Ser Willem’s not going to make it to your meeting,” she said, and turned to run.

* * *

What was that supposed to mean?

Tyrion groaned as Arya ran away before he could ask. He couldn’t catch her, and she probably knew that. But he could ask her more questions the next time he saw her. He felt fairly confident that she had been telling the truth when she said that she was staying, and that she wanted to help. But there were a thousand more questions that she hadn’t answered. How did she change her face? Where had she been? And how would she help? 

He’d find out, he supposed.

He sighed and went back to climbing.

As he passed one of the arrowslits, a faint noise caught his attention. He peeked out to see a crowd gathering far below, clustered around a gaudy cloak splayed over a crumpled body. No, Ser Willem wasn’t going to make it to the meeting, and Tyrion couldn’t imagine that there would be many people grieving for him. Now maybe his poor widow could get some peace, and his good-brother could get some work done with the Queen.

Tyrion turned to head up the stairs to tell Daenerys, wondering just how Arya Stark had known, and wondering once again exactly what she meant when she said that she wanted to help the Queen.

**Author's Note:**

> \- My deepest gratitude to the people who created A Wiki of Ice and Fire for their exceptionally detailed entry on Dragonstone Castle.
> 
> \- I took quite a few liberties with the way magic works. I needed a reason for Arya to not be Faceless, because if Tyrion’s going to recognize her, he needs to see her own face. So I decided that since Dragonstone was built with Valyrian magic, it had some safeguards against other kinds of Valyrian magic.
> 
> \- The Celtigar and Ferren families are canon; Lord Mathin, Lady Eliana, and Ser Willem aren’t. I needed some minor nobles to work with, so I just made up some new members of existing families.


End file.
